Creative Writing Club

Authors Anonymous – the most modest writers in the world! They hide their wonderful work in a veil of anonymity, but if you want to meet them you can come to the school library any Monday after school.

Our creative writing circle brings together pupils from all years who write in all genres. To date we have produced one-act plays, won competitions with both short stories and poetry, and brought together texts and graphics in our own picturebooks. Romance, comedy, sci-fi, horror, detective fiction, pastiche – we do it all.

We have several prize-winners among our number and enjoy entering competitions. Contests often require us to write to commission, which is an important lesson for any professional writer to learn.

We approach our writing with a wide range of games and activities. Every so often a nervous (or excited) author chooses to be Writer of the Week, and presents a work in progress for constructive criticism from the rest of the club. A more light-hearted activity was blindfolded exploration of the library, to encourage us to use senses other than sight in our writing. Occasionally we take trips out of school, for example to the Special Collections at QUB’s library, where we saw and handled, among other things, mediaeval manuscripts, items of armour, and an atlas from the Napoleonic wars, complete with bullet hole.

Next year our authors will be following a FutureLearn course curated by the Open University and offered on line. Elements of the course include: keeping a writer’s notebook, observation skills, character sketches, a mini-story, rituals followed by famous writers, starting techniques, story ideas and “what ifs”. But there’ll still be time for plenty of silliness and giggling… you wouldn’t believe how entertaining it is being an author! Come along and find out!

Atlas from Napoleonic Wars – with bullet hole!

Rebecca McMinn, winner of the All-Ireland Rotary Young Writers competition